Archive for the 'homeschooling' Category

To School or Not to School?

You may have noticed a serious lack of posts on this blog… I actually considered canning the whole thing because I’ve really been enjoying not blogging. But for now it survives, so it’s about time for an update. Since my last post we moved to Melbourne. We did this because of all cities in australia, [...]

Australian Unschooling goes to the Next Level

The first ever Australian Unschooling Retreat/ Conference wound up a couple of weeks ago and it was a huge success! With over 100 families attending it far exceeded expectations (i admit it… especially mine!) and involved 4 days of discussion, swimming, clay play, inspiration and more. Our family enjoyed making new friends, connecting with old [...]

June Pit Stop – Australian Unschooling Resources

Pit Stops are posts where i choose a theme and profile some sites. According to my web stats only about 30% of the people who visit the Pit are from Australia, so sorry to all you others for whom this is less interest. This month, homeschooling & unschooling online resources for Australians… LIBERATED LEARNING This [...]

Cartoon: Convincing Dad

Ive been uninspired about writing recently… so thought id draw instead. Hopefully this family will make a regular appearance in the pit… click on the image below for a full size pic in a new window… [note: you can reproduce any of these cartoons so long as you: 1) leave a comment or drop me [...]

Two Articles Question Mainstream Education

Two interesting articles doing the rounds recently caught my eye. The first was published by the BBC and asks in its headline, “Is five too soon to start school?”. (btw – thanks to Scott Stantis for the cartoon). The article compares England’s experience with countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland where school begins at seven years [...]

Advance review of The Unschooling Unmanual

Jan Hunt director of the Natural Child Project and her unschooled son Jason are coeditors of the soon to be released The Unschooling Unmanual. This compilation of eleven essays will be available in early Feb, 2008. I managed to get my mitts on an advance digital copy of the book and have written an indepth [...]

A Must for Every Homeschooler/ Unschooler

Here at the Parenting Pit we are working on a range of products to make your homeschooling/ unschooling journey a blissful haven (you know… like the ones you read about on all those egroups!). Take a sneak peak at some of the products soon available: THE FREAK OUT FILE For mild to medium freak outs, [...]

Calling Byron Bay, Northern NSW Homeschoolers!

We have just helped to initiate a new Homeschool group for people based around Mullumbimby, Brunswick Heads, Byron Bay and Northern NSW (that’s in Australia in case you were wondering…). Byron Homeschoolers involves unschoolers but is diverse and broad incorporating a variety of parenting & homeschooling approaches. If you are in the area or planning [...]

Hey… Look at that Dog!

That is what I yelled out to my family as we drove down a street in Launceston, Tasmania and saw the creature pictured left. It seemed like all my family, even my 19 month old son, rolled their eyes as Anne politely pointed out, “It’s a llama.” I still argue that the car was moving [...]

Unauthorised Guide for Unschooling Mums dealing with (still developing) Unschooling Dads

I keep meeting and hearing of Mums who want to unschool & practice non coercive parenting but are having problems bringing their hubbys along for the ride. Originally I had planned to write a series of “letter to Dads”, in trying to communicate the great potential and benefits of these approaches. I was half way [...]